Apparatus and methods for generating and receiving optical signals at substantially 100Gb/s and beyond

A substantially 400 Gb/s optical transceiver includes a substantially 400 Gb/s optical transmitter which includes a set of four substantially 100 Gb/s tunable optical transmitters, each transmitting a substantially 100 Gb/s optical signal in a wavelength division multiplexed form over four channel wavelengths selected such that the resulting 16 channel wavelengths are different from each other and are suitable for WDM, and an optical transmission interface including a set of four 1:4 wavelength division demultiplexers which are operative to demultiplex the substantially 100 Gb/s optical signals to produce substantially 25 Gb/s optical signals over each of the 16 different channel wavelengths, and a 16:1 wavelength division multiplexer which is operative to multiplex the substantially 25 Gb/s optical signals of the 16 different channel wavelengths to generate a substantially 400 Gb/s optical signal. Other embodiments refer to a substantially 400 Gb/s optical receiver, other optical transceivers that operate at substantially 100 Gb/s and beyond, and related apparatus and methods.